Six Steps To Property Level Flood Resilience26th September 2017

The Six Steps to Property Level Flood Resilience guidance document gives simple and easy to understand guidance for what to look for at the various stages of property protection. The concise sections allow easy to read guidance to be understood by all audiences and the locations you can find further information regarding flood resilience.

In order to implement this within the UK context the two guidance documents were written in order to guide professionals (particularly in local authorities) and property owners to best practice in making such technologies part of an overall flood risk management strategy.

BRE, Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Manchester collaborated together on the guidance documents to help to integrate flood resilient technologies into existing management and planning practices.

A simple six step process was developed to guide the implementation of technologies that drew on our work with stakeholders from Government, local authorities, community groups, flood risk manufacturers, insurers and engineers.

Flood risk management practices vary across Europe and so this guidance pertains specifically to England and its planning and flood risk management systems.

We hope in the future that the six step principle can be modified and extended throughout Europe.

The methods used in the research included surveys of relevant professional stakeholders and, in collaboration with the National Flood Forum, property owners who had previously installed property-level flood resilience technologies. It also included interviews and workshops in the Heywood area of Greater Manchester and with high-level government stakeholders.

The document went through several iterations based on comments received on the drafts from a wide range of groups including central and local government bodies, government agencies, surveyors, manufacturers and insurers. This could be replicated in other EU countries, within the parameters of the six steps shown in order to ensure that they are culturally relevant to different member states.

Such guidance needs to be produced by an independent and trusted third-party who does not have any vested interests, such as a research institute. Adopters must fully complement developing technical testing and standards, yet similarly pay due attention to the ability of particular end-users to understand, deploy, and maintain the technologies.

“This guidance has been written by researchers at The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University in collaboration with the Building Research Establishment. The suggested reference is: White, I., O’Hare, P., Lawson, N., Garvin, S., and Connelly, A. 2013. Six steps to flood resilience – guidance for local authorities and professionals. Manchester.

The main aim is to provide guidance on making flood resilience (FRe) technologies, particularly at property and neighbourhood scales, part of an overall Flood Risk Management (FRM) strategy. The guidance draws together as much of the existing information on flood resilience that exists for England.”

There are two versions of this document, to download the six steps guidance for property owners, please click here.

To download the six steps to flood resilience document that has been designed for local authorities and professions, please click here.